NeverEnding
by Elvie-Bexer
Summary: Each of their quests will never end. A series of oneshots focusing on each of my favorite characters and their personal struggles.
1. Count Olaf: Seven Deadly Sins

**Title:** Never-ending

**Pairings: **Violet/Olaf, Gríma/Éowyn, Phantom/Christine

**Other Characters:** Darth Maul, V, Elphaba

**Summary:** Some quests are endless. A series of one-shots about various characters.

**Rating:** PG-13 for creepiness.

**Genre:** Angst/Drama/Romance

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of them, although I certainly seem to pretend I do.

**A/N:** It's not actually a crossover, even though it looks like it. Each character simply has variations on the theme.

- - - - - - - - - -

**A Series of Unfortunate Events**

**"Seven Deadly Sins"**

_Elvie Bexer_

- - - - - - - - - -

Olaf barely remembered being a boy. Indeed, it seemed to all who knew him that he had never _been_ a child; and perhaps he hadn't. While still young he had become a lonely orphan, his parents brutally murdered - so he believed - by a rich family he knew as the Baudelaires. Young as he was he had still sworn vengeance against the cold-blooded killers, and thusly he waited for years, awaiting the perfect moment to destroy his most hated enemies.

As his hatred grew and overtook him, so too did many other vices. The foremost of these transgressions was a terrible, voracious greed. Never as wealthy as many of his former friends, he quickly wasted his money in attempts to impress the upper class society and was ruined. Thrown into a desperate and poor state, he thirsted for the former glory of his life. He became determined to acquire more and more money, amassing fortune after fortune until he need never worry about his situation and status again. And who better to steal money from than the Baudelaires, his ultimate foes?

It seemed so simple at first, his quest to ruin them. He would kill them as they had killed his parents, and then he would steal away their children and torture them until they could take no more. Once they had joined their parents in their flaming graves, their fortune would be his.

The law was never on his side in most cases, especially this one; but it rarely mattered. Olaf was clever enough to outwit even the smartest of lawyers, and he was quick to seek out legal ways in which to snatch the Baudelaire fortune from the young and lost children. It would be like taking candy from a baby.

There was only one difficulty, and her name was Violet.

The orphans had been tired and depressed when they arrived at Olaf's doorstep. Olaf had grown cold-hearted enough not to care about the boy, Klaus, and he certainly cared nothing for the baby, Sunny. But the girl… that sad, beautiful girl…

Soon it was no longer greed that was Olaf's only sin. He was forced to add 'lust' to the ever-growing list.

He mentally berated himself every day as he watched her scrub the floors and windows from whatever corners he could hide in. _She's only fourteen!_ his mind would shout. _You're sick! You're twisted! You're disgusting!_

Indeed, he must have been; but he couldn't help himself. Violet reminded Olaf somewhat of himself after his parents' death: young and lost, with anger smoldering just below the sad exterior. Pushed far enough, Olaf was certain, she would become as cold and hateful as he. Then, at last, she and he would be the perfect match.

He had nearly screamed in ecstasy when he found the ultimate culmination to his plans: a wife's estate was passed immediately to her husband. Violet, as his wife, would have to give him her fortune. With money and his pretty little wife, Olaf would at last be able to satisfy every last one of his miserable vices. More likely, he would add a few more to the list, but that mattered little to him; what he wanted more than anything was to sate his need for money, and for that perfect, lost and lovely girl.

One thing he forgot, in the midst of his joy at this perfect solution: Violet was every inch as clever as he, and, as she well knew, there is _always_ something.

When she announced that she had signed the page with her left hand, Olaf had nearly died of his own shock and rage. She had _denied_ him, even though he had promised her the comforts of a happy home; she had _rejected_ him, even with her baby sister hanging from a tower. She had outwitted him, somehow. He hated the Baudelaire family so much in that instant, and loved Violet even more. How could he not? Such cleverness was rare in a world full of fools, and though he might not have been from the side of V.F.D. that appreciated reading, he could still appreciate a sharp mind.

He had escaped, of course. Even Violet could not have stopped him, had she tried, which she did not. And once he was safely away from the society that had shunned him, he began to regroup, to plan once more. She and her fortune would not escape him again. And if she did… well, no matter.

He would follow her forever.

- - - - - - - - -


	2. Grima: The Eternity of Watching

**Lord of the Rings**

**"The Eternity of Watching"**

_Elvie Bexer_

- - - - - - - - - -

As a young man, Gríma son of Gálmód had not been apt to gape at pretty girls like other boys. To him, the beauties that were available represented only pain and heartbreak, for he had learned the hard way that he could never have any of them. They reviled him for his features, for his intelligence, for his difference. In return, he despised them for their lack of capacity to understand his oddities and for their inability to see past his face to all the other things that he could offer them.

Things did not change when Gríma began his work at the King's palace of Meduseld. Since he had become wealthy there was no lack of women who were suddenly willing to bend to his every whim, but he had no interest in a shallow, greedy bride. He had determined long ago that he would have no one. Having no one was safer than loving someone and ending wounded by them.

He maintained a constant state of loneliness, speaking to few, bothering no one, never appearing at social functions unless Théoden King specifically dictated that he should. Even then he was silent, and he never laughed or smiled at anything that was said. His soberness threw off the other men and women around him, and soon they chose to avoid him rather than have their lively mood dampened.

When Gríma was in his late twenties, Théoden's young niece and nephew, Éowyn and Éomer, arrived at Meduseld. Éomer was like any other Rohirric boy: he wanted to be a Rider of Rohan. He trained every day in order to make himself worthier of that position, and he cared little for anything else. He was fiercely devoted to his country and maintained the standards of his people. He was the paragon of Rohirric male-ness. Needless to say, Gríma and Éomer despised each other from the beginning.

But Éowyn was different - from her brother, from her uncle, from everyone else in Rohan. She was an exquisite little lady, well mannered, cultured, and versed in her place in society. However, she never, _never_ accepted it. She wanted to be a warrior just like her brother, and she too trained with swords, once her lessons in etiquette were finished. Because of the strangeness of her own desires, she was more apt to understand those who were different. Indeed, she gravitated towards such people as a moth gravitates towards the flame of a candle. Gríma was one of the many outcasts who she chose to take under her wing.

It started when she would quietly intrude upon his solitude while he worked at his desk. She would enter without asking permission, drag a chair up beside him, and then ask him what he was doing. In the beginning, he'd had difficulty keeping his irritation in check at the interruption; but as the days wore on and she entered heedless of his desire to be alone, he began to look forward to her appearances. She was always deeply interested in what Gríma was doing or reading or writing, and was always anxious to learn how she could do it herself. Gríma became Éowyn's willing teacher, so that by the time she was twelve she had learned how to read and write - a rare skill among women, even women of the court.

At twelve, Éowyn was sent away for a few years to a place where she would be "educated" in how best to be a wife. The very thought of Éowyn in such a place seemed ridiculous to Gríma, but he accepted Théoden's decision to send her away with little protest. He missed her intrusions, but he knew she would be back. When she returned, she would doubtless be wed off to some nobleman, but Gríma did not think Théoden would allow her to live very far away. All that mattered to him was that she was close enough to visit, so that he could still talk to her occasionally, when his loneliness grew too overbearing.

Then Éowyn returned.

At sixteen, she had blossomed into womanhood with extraordinary grace and beauty. The amazing thing was that she did not even seem aware of how beautiful she was. She seemed surprised to notice that things changed between her and her friends who were men, and often wept to Gríma about her disappointment that these friendships could not last. Gríma tried to explain each time how difficult it would be for men to see her in the same light, but even his gentle warnings made her angry. "If they are so shallow, then they were never my friends at all!" she concluded furiously at the closing of each conversation.

This, and other reasons, was why Gríma stayed silent about his suddenly growing feelings for his princess.

Once - and only once - he spoke to Théoden about his interest in Éowyn. He was rejected immediately. "Éowyn will need to marry someone of stature, someone who can help Rohan," Théoden had said firmly. "You of all men know how badly things go for Rohan these days."

Gríma did know; but nothing mattered to him anymore. Nothing mattered except having Éowyn as his wife.

The pain of her uncle's rejection stayed raw for months afterward, and since he had been denied by the King he hardly saw the point in revealing his adoration to Éowyn herself. She would only feel betrayed by his inability to see past her beauty, and then she too would leave him.

How he wished he could explain that it wasn't her glorious beauty that drew him to her; he loved her soul, the wildness of her spirit and her need to be free of the constraints society had placed on her. Even then she grew pale and weary, forced to remain indoors and embroider while listening to lectures about what her future husband would require of her, when all she wanted was to ride her horse as far as she could and never be stopped by anyone.

Gríma wanted nothing more than to give her that freedom. But she - nor anyone else - would ever let him.

This was when the wizard entered his life.

The offer had seemed too utterly perfect at first, as most things often seemed, and Gríma had been naturally suspicious; but Saruman had seemed so very sincere. _Do a few simple tasks for me,_ he had said, _And the Lady Éowyn will be yours… forever._

How could Gríma have resisted? A few simple tasks hardly seemed a difficult price to pay for something so precious as Éowyn.

But a few simple tasks grew into increasingly difficult and illegal manipulations, and Gríma, by no means a moral man, began to squirm. But every time he seemed on the verge of stopping his work for Saruman, he would remember the irresistible reward awaiting him, so tantalizingly close, and yet, so far away.

It hardly mattered what he need do for her; he would do it without question and without hesitation, just to have her as his bride, sharing his days - and his nights. Such rewards were too wonderful to resist.

He would do anything to have her, anything at all; and his work would never cease until at last she was his and his alone.


End file.
